Is it a written rule that one needs to know English to participate in
Wikimedia's governance?
If it isn't, then the word "need" must not be used about it. If it is, it
must be changed (and that would be a topic for a different thread).
English is an important practicality, but demanding it goes again the
Internationalism guiding principle. Most people in the world don't know
English.
Nat points out an important problem correctly. Rejecting it outright is
wrong.
Whether her proposed solution is right? - I'm not sure, because the
resources are limited, and we do try to stick to volunteers whenever
possible. Also, from experience, paid translation of Wikimedia materials
tends to be bad - professional translators who aren't Wikimedians are
remarkably bad at understanding our jargon (and I don't blame them!)
A reasonable compromise, which doesn't require a lot of discussion, for the
current case is to find a list of eligible voters who don't know English
and to proritize their languages somehow. Also, I'd imagine that a
potential board member should be able to find somebody to translate at
least her or his page ;)
The Foundation could think of a better way to accommodate this better in
the future; at the very least, prepare the lists of required languages
earlier.
בתאריך 6 במרץ 2016 09:45, "Gerard Meijssen" <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
כתב:
Hoi,
I am the last one to say that multi-linguality is not important. However,
given that the affiliates board is selected by an organisation that NEEDS
to communicate in English, I disagree.
It is vital for people of the affiliates to have a reasonable understanding
of English and when they do not, this is not the place to start remedying
it.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 6 March 2016 at 08:36, attolippip <attolippip(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
As you are (probably) aware, the 2016 affiliate-selected Board seats
process has started already. And I do think that the process is broken
somewhere [1]. The democracy principles even in my country, though it is
far from being a role model for transparency and governance, state that
people are equal and they have rights and responsibilities. But the
process
at the moment is not fair and equal footing is
not provided for. It is
great to have dedicated friends across the Movement that can translate
your
statement into German or Chinese, but as long as
not all statements are
translated into the languages used in all affiliates eligible to vote, I
deem the process broken.
Thus I formally request that WMF spend enough resources to have all
nominations pages translated into all languages requested by the
affiliates
eligible to vote [2] [3] and all languages used
already by the nominees.
I
am sure that the three facilitators cannot
provide it. And there are
limits
to what volunteers can do [4] or how fast. If WMF
refuses, I am going to
use my own money [5], it costs 150 UAH (around 6 USD) to have a page
translated into Swedish, for example :) I can manage 7 pages translated
into as many languages as my personal budget will allow, but I shall do
it
fairly at least, so we won’t have Susanna’s
statement only in English and
Spanish, while Osmar’s is also in German, Catalan and French. WMF spends
considerable resources (mostly in staff time) on supporting the three
"community-elected" seats, but these two seats are not lesser board seats
than the three "community" ones.
The nominees write their statement in English. Nothing wrong with that,
of
course. But for a tiny little (and big) thing:
not everybody understands
it
well enough to make an informed choice. But even
among seven board
members
of Wikimedia Ukraine, two DO NOT SPEAK English,
so they can read the
statements only if they [the statements] are translated into Ukrainian.
They have no choice, actually. In discussing whether to endorse my
candidacy, they either have to believe the rest of the Board members
that I
am the most wonderful candidate and the others
are just not as wonderful
and that’s it, or they are to ignore the Board meeting where this
decision
is to be made. They can spend time editing
Wikipedia or reading instead.
And beyond the language issue, there is the informing and participation
issue: I am not sure how this process is organised in other affiliates,
and
how you make your decisions to vote for this or
that possibility (in
terms
of this, I believe that there are seven
possibilities presented at the
moment, by us, as nominees. So you can accept or decline what we seven
offer). You (actually) do not know us and if we are going to be great or
poor as Board members of WMF, and if we are the right-for-the-moment
choice, but you are going to choose. Are you really going to choose just
based on your personal contacts? Remember, in most cases administrators
are
chosen more objectively, as it is almost
impossible to get to know them
first personally. They are ‘judged’ by their deeds before, during and
after… Were you going to ask your communities what they think about the
candidates? And the members of your affiliate? If not, please consider
this
option. We do have a sad example of an appointed
Board member being not
accepted by us, as the Community.
I am sorry for the long letter. I do believe I have a right to request
(and
suggest) this. I was a part of a team that made
sure that the Ukrainian
community REALLY knows about the elections so the eligible users on UKWP
have voted [6] [7] And we really worked to make that happen. As you can
see, Board elections may be of great importance to the whole community.
So
(at least) informing your own members is
important, I believe.
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
Wikimedia Ukraine
[1] There is a question about the ‘turnout in this selection process’
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Questio…
so you’d think that people care. But do they?
Really?
[2] I think that contacting each affiliate eligible to vote and asking
them
if they need help to translate the statements and
if yes, what languages
are required by memberships/affiliates’ leadership to read the
statements.
By doing this we also make sure that they are
aware of the upcoming
elections and are engaged
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters
[4] Because they just may be not willing to do it
[5] well, I was going to translate into Ukrainian all statement anyway,
translating is the best way to read the statement thoughtfully :)
[6]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2015-May/077966.html
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Stats
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